FreedomWorks - John Kitzhaberhttp://www.freedomworks.org/fieldtags/john-kitzhaber
enOregon Set To Say Goodbye To Its Doomed Health Care Exchangehttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/oregon-set-say-goodbye-its-doomed-health-care-exchange
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="//d7.freedomworks.org.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/large/s3/field/image/CoverOregonPic.jpg?itok=XTMSp4Km"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="//d7.freedomworks.org.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/large/s3/field/image/CoverOregonPic.jpg?itok=XTMSp4Km" width="480" height="205" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>In 2011, with bipartisan support from both Democrats and Republicans, Cover Oregon was ushered in as the vanguard of the state based healthcare exchanges encouraged by the Affordable Care Act. Instead of resisting the Obamacare mandate, the Oregon legislature doubled down on Obamacare, with the encouragement of our Democrat Governor, former ER doctor John Kitzhaber. Despite innumerable warnings from grassroots activists that the project was doomed to failure, most Republicans in the legislature were persuaded to go along. Now, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/obama-administration-prepares-to-take-over-oregons-broken-health-insurance-exchange/2014/04/24/ff9aa220-cbc4-11e3-95f7-7ecdde72d2ea_story.html">Oregon is saying goodbye to the terminally ill Cover Oregon</a>, after millions in wasted taxpayer money, FBI investigations, lawsuits and political fallout that will be felt for years to come.</p>
<p>Media reports in recent months have detailed numerous fundamental flaws in the project, painting a picture of overall incompetence and poor executive management. Now, <a href="http://www.katu.com/news/local/Technology-group-recommends-Cover-Oregon-replace-website-with-federal-exchange-256569781.html">according to KATU News</a>, Oregon has little choice but to move to the federal exchange:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oregon, once expected to be a national leader in the federal health care overhaul, on Thursday moved to become the first state to dump its troubled online health exchange and use the federal marketplace instead.</p>
<p>A top Cover Oregon official, Alex Pettit, said fixing the existing system would be too costly at an estimated $78 million, would take too long to implement, and would be too risky. The state's site still isn't fully functional seven months after a failed launch.</p>
<p>Pettit said switching to the federal system would cost $4 million to $6 million.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Speaking of money, the real kicker is that Cover Oregon <a href="http://twitchy.com/2014/04/24/who-stole-all-the-money-oregon-expected-to-scrap-state-o-care-exchange-keep-unspent-federal-grants/">has no plans</a> to return the unspent $57 Million of the total $305 Million in federal funds granted to help create the healthcare exchange.</p>
<p>Cover Oregon has been an abject failure in its core mission - to be a portal for folks to find affordable private insurance plans. According to the AP, so far about 240,000 Oregonians have enrolled in coverage through Cover Oregon. More than 69,000 of those enrolled in private health plans, while 171,000 enrolled in Oregon's Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan.</p>
<p>Of course, the Governor and legislators who approved this mess are in full damage control mode, lashing out at the website contractor when the the evidence clearly indicates the issues stem largely from gross mismanagement by state bureaucrats. As this was a newly created agency that reports directly to the executive branch, the blame falls squarely at Kitzhaber's feet. Contrary to the public spin that Oracle screwed up the website, the real problem was in the way Kitzhaber's crew designed the contracts.
A friend of mine who works at a large computer corporation and is familiar with IT contracting with public agencies had this to say about how flawed the process was with Cover Oregon:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>IT contracting is a discipline. There are standards, procedures and controls to protect investments. These guys used seriously unethical loopholes to circumvent the controls.</p>
<p>Not only was Oracle on a "time and materials" contract (which basically means they are just billing hours and not responsible for anything), but they didn't even contract directly with Oracle. The laundered the money through an existing contract with Dell in order to circumvent the proper contracting controls that would have provided some accountability.</p>
<p>On top of that, they played games with splitting up the POs to avoid controls associated with larger purchases.</p>
<p>If I did something like this, I'd be fired instantly. Probably be facing charges. Seriously.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Oregon has extra layers of security in place to limit the amount of any vendor contract without serious oversight. Cover Oregon circumvented these safeguards by billing the project to existing projects instead of billing it under its mandate from the legislature. On top of that, <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/03/oracles_contracts_for_cover_or.html">the CIO inexplicably canceled a plan</a> to hire a separate system integrator to serve as general contractor, allowing Oracle to work with no oversight and no deadlines.</p>
<p>There is even more potential for criminal charges. In February <a href="http://www.katu.com/news/investigators/Cover-Oregon-allegation-if-its-true-someones-going-to-prison-243427781.html">it was reported</a> that Cover Oregon officials may have deceived the federal government by creating dummy websites that falsely represented the amount of progress made in creating the healthcare exchange. The allegation is that in order to maintain federal funding, managers lied to the feds about meeting benchmarks in development. The FBI has become involved in that investigation.</p>
<p>Industry insiders are amazed that nobody has gone to jail for such egregious breaches of public trust.</p>
<p>This announcement that Cover Oregon is being scrapped is a landmark in a sad saga of failure, mismanagement and possible criminal fraud. The one positive that may be seen from all this is that it has necessitated the revival of investigative journalism in Oregon, which has lagged badly in recent years as reporting staffs have been slashed and editorial decisions too often favor the one party that has been mostly in charge for the past few decades. Perhaps this will be the final straw for Oregonians, who may be ready to change who they elect to office.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:07:45 +0000LT180059678 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/oregon-set-say-goodbye-its-doomed-health-care-exchange#commentsTroubled Cover Oregon Obamacare Exchange Feeds Personal Info To Strangershttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/troubled-cover-oregon-obamacare-exchange-feeds-personal-info-strangers
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><img src="http://d7.freedomworks.org.s3.amazonaws.com/kitzhaber.jpg" alt="kitzhaber" title="kitzhaber" class="imagecache imagecache-full">Cover Oregon, the bi-partisan state health care exchange set up under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), is facing more trouble. The exchange has faced&nbsp;<a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2013/11/20/it-gets-worse-oregon-exchange-has-never-ever-worked-n1750068">national scrutiny</a> for spending $305 Million on a website and $28 Million more in marketing costs, without having signed up a single new enrollee after nearly two months in operation. Now, it's being reported that multiple security breaches have sent personal information of enrollees, including social security numbers, to third parties.</p><p>It has been widely reported that the website has been an utter failure, and will not be operable until sometime in 2014. So the state has set up a paper application process, hiring 400 new temporary workers to process the applications one at a time. (An amusing aside - Cover Oregon's office only has one fax machine to take inbound applications, <a href="https://twitter.com/coveroregonfax">prompting its own parody Twitter account</a>.)</p><p>There are now three documented cases where an applicant's personal information has been mailed to someone other than the applicant. <a href="http://www.kgw.com/news/Sweet-Home-man-worries-about-Cover-Oregon-gaffs-233553761.html">KGW reports</a> on one man from Sweet Home, OR, who refused to provide his personal information over the phone to someone claiming to be from the Oregon Department of Human Services:</p><blockquote><p>SWEET HOME, OR--After recent reports of security problems with Cover Oregon application forms, at least one frustrated applicant is concerned his personal information might be compromised.<br><br>The Cover Oregon application process for Sweet Home resident Jeff Goodwin has been anything but a treat.<br><br>"'Frustrated' I think is the word [I would use], because this is something that my family needs," said Goodwin, a father of four. The way he sees it, the health of his family is in jeopardy.<br><br>"The website doesn't work. You try the online application, doesn't work. So I mailed the thing," Goodwin said.<br><br>That was early November, and then last week Goodwin received a phone call from a person claiming to be with the Department of Health Services.<br><br>"They started asking me for confidential information and that made me really nervous," Goodwin said. "I have no way of knowing if this person is from DHS. It could be anyone calling me."</p><p>He refused to give his information out. Goodwin worried his identity might be compromised much like three others in Oregon who enrolled in Cover Oregon only to have their personal information mailed out to total strangers.</p></blockquote><p>One woman in Salem was <a href="http://www.koin.com/news/marion-county/cover-oregon-addresses-security-breeches">reportedly</a> sent the personal information of two other applicants:</p><blockquote><p>PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) - Cover Oregon confirmed to KOIN 6 News private information from other people -- including birthdays and Social Security numbers -- were given to applicants who were asked to provide more clarification on their income.<br><br>On Friday, KOIN 6 News profiled the experience of Valarie Henderson of Salem. She received personal information from Cover Oregon of two people she didn't know.<br><br>Officials said in the other instances, a customer service rep picked up pages from the same printer not realizing other people's pages were in the pile. They said they will immediately contact the affected customers and rectify any compromised information.</p></blockquote><p>An embarrassed Governor John Kitzhaber (D-Roseburg) was forced to make a statement before the Thanksgiving Holiday, in an attempt to reassure Oregonians that they are on the case.</p><p>Among the immediate changes to be made, workers will no longer send back partially filled out applications. Instead, they will send blank forms requesting any missing information. They will also seal envelopes before they go to the mail room so that forms don't accidentally fall out.</p><p>That's right, your personal information was apparently just floating around the office willy nilly. Hard to believe, certainly, given the diligence with which the temps were hired to process all the applications.</p><p>Ahem.</p><p>Anyway, <a href="http://www.kgw.com/lifestyle/health/health-reform/Cover-Oregon-discloses-2-more-security-breaches-233449311.html">Gov. Kitzhaber is on the case</a>:</p><blockquote><p>SALEM -- Gov. John Kitzhaber skirted specifics when questions on Tuesday about recent security breaches at the state's health care enrollment program, but stated problems had been fixed.<br><br>"We have 30,000 applications that we are processing. Out of those there were three security breaches," said Kitzhaber when questioned by KGW. "Which is three too many. Friday we fundamentally changed that process."<br><br>The Gov said going forward one person would be in charge of overseeing the paper application process and would oversee resources and personnel at both the Oregon Health Authority and Cover Oregon.</p></blockquote><p>So, 3 security breeches out of 30,000 applicants is not a bad ratio, but one guy to supervise 400 temps is a solution? Time will tell.&nbsp;</p><p>If you're in Oregon, do yourself a favor - don't apply. Seriously. People are hurting right now as their health coverage is canceled under Obamacare, but how much worse will they be hurt if identity thieves get ahold of their info?</p><p>Talk about adding insult to injury. <br><br></p></div></div></div>Fri, 29 Nov 2013 14:19:26 +0000LT180058120 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/troubled-cover-oregon-obamacare-exchange-feeds-personal-info-strangers#commentsOregon Land Use Law - 40 Years Of Failed Planninghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/oregon-land-use-law-40-years-failed-planning
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>On May 29, 1973, popular and iconic Republican Governor Tom McCall, famous for his <a href="http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/article/former-governor-tom-mccall-message-visitors/">environmental advocacy and anti-development rhetoric</a> (“I urge them to come and come many, many times to enjoy the beauty of Oregon. But I also ask them, for heaven’s sake, don’t move here to live.”), signed into law Oregon's transformational land use legislation that made virtually every land use decision subject to review by state agencies.</p><p><a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/senate_bill_100/">Oregon Senate Bill 100</a> required that every Oregon city and county prepare a comprehensive plan in accordance with a set of general state goals, and created the <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/land_conservation_and_development_commission_lcdc_/">Land Conservation and Development Commission</a> (LCDC) to oversee these plans and approve land use decisions. The original purpose of this law was to control sprawling suburban growth and industrial development in an attempt to protect the farmland of the fertile Willamette Valley. But as is so often the case, the scheme has been ineffective and has had extensive unintended consequences. The planners have failed to have a substantive effect on growth. The only things that seem to have been controlled are economic development, personal liberty and property rights.</p><p>There have been several celebrations around the state to <a href="http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20130523/UPDATE/130523026/Governor-Kitzhaber-observes-40th-year-Oregon-s-land-use-law">commemorate the passage of this law</a>, and several articles have appeared that tell the <a href="http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20130602/COLUMN0108/306020018/Wong-Four-decades-later-looking-back-passage-transformational-land-use-bill">history of its passage</a>. It is generally accepted that the urbanites of Portland love this law, while most of the rest of the state resents it.</p><p>The history of the passage of SB100 is quite interesting. The <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/land_use_planning/">rhetoric</a> that surrounded the debate in the late 60s and early 70s centered around class warfare and fearmongering:</p><blockquote><p>Metropolitan growth was explicitly associated with the painful example of southern California. Governor Tom McCall summarized the fears of many of his constituents in January 1973, when he spoke to the Oregon legislature about the "shameless threat to our environment and to the whole quality of life—unfettered despoiling of the land" and pointed his finger at suburbanization and second home development.</p><p>The main arena in which the Oregon system has addressed social issues has been housing. Reflecting the strong interest during the 1970s in "fair share" housing policies that tried to distribute low-income housing throughout entire metropolitan areas, Goal 10 requires that jurisdictions provide "appropriate types and amounts of land . . . necessary and suitable for housing that meets the housing needs of households of all income levels." In an early assertion of its authority, <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/land_conservation_and_development_commission_lcdc_/" target="_blank">LCDC</a> forbade the small town of Durham in Washington County to shift its entire multifamily zone to single-family. The city of Milwaukie ran into trouble by trying to set more stringent review standards for apartments than for detached houses. In 1982, the small suburban Portland municipality of Happy Valley became a test case when <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/land_conservation_and_development_commission_lcdc_/" target="_blank">LCDC</a> ordered it to plan for a substantially greater residential density than its residents desired.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/randal-otoole">Randal O'Toole</a>, a Senior Fellow at CATO and Portland native, has spent his career examining Oregon's land use laws and finds that, despite the lofty goals, <a href="http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=7956">the law has led to</a> higher home prices, more volatility in the market and little effect on sprawling development:</p><blockquote><p>First, the law made housing in Oregon unaffordable. Before the law was passed, median home prices were consistently about two times median family incomes. As Oregon cities began drawing urban-growth boundaries, prices quickly shot up to three time incomes and today stand at four times incomes.</p></blockquote><p>This compares poorly to other urban areas with less burdensome land use laws - such as Oregon's signature Urban Growth Boundary that will not allow for residential or industrial development outside the tightly defined urban area. For instance, while median Portland home prices are approximately 3.8 times as large as median incomes, Tacoma's ratio stands at 3.2; Chicago's ratio is 3;&nbsp; and Houston's is 2.5. All three of these markets have significantly lower median home prices and equal or higher median incomes. (All figures available from <a href="http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/homepricedata/">CNN Money</a>)</p><p>So rather than bring down median home prices, as intended, this law has had a dramatically opposite effect.</p><p>But it gets worse. O'Toole continues,</p><blockquote><p>... the law contributed to Oregon’s hostile business environment. Except for a few select high-tech industries that were blessed with tax breaks, most industries in the state declined. Oregon leaders decided to “diversify,” meaning become less dependent on the timber industry, but instead they became dependent on the silicon chip industry, leading to a big decline in the state’s economy with the dot-com crash. Meanwhile, home-grown companies like Hollywood Video left in anger at Oregon’s ridiculous land-use rules. One result is that, during recessions, Oregon often has the first or second highest unemployment rates in the nation ... far from reducing the cost of services, the law contributed to Oregon becoming a high-tax state. Oregon’s tax burden is one of the <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/03/02/state-local-tax-burden/1937757/">highest in the nation</a>, exceeded by only 11 other states (most of which also have similar land-use regulation) ... Last but not least, the law trampled on people’s property rights. The 80 percent of Oregonians living in urban areas more-or-less told the 20 percent of Oregonians who live on and own about 97 percent of the private land in the state, “We’ve decided your land will be our scenic viewsheds, so you can’t develop it.”</p></blockquote><p>O'Toole notes that SB100 has not had a demonstrable effect on the rate of urbanization of Oregon's land. And this isn't a statistic created by a right-wing think-tank - this was a conclusion reached in 1990 in a study by <a href="http://www.friends.org/about/our-focus">1,000 Friends Of Oregon</a>, a staunch defender of the Oregon Land Use laws that was co-founded by Gov. McCall. The <a href="http://ti.org/vaupdate10.html ">study showed</a> that under current law, by 2050 approximately 6.64% of the Willamette Valley would be urbanized. If SB100 were to be repealed, that rate of urbanization would skyrocket ... to 7.64%.</p><p>So here we have legislation with the original goals of reducing housing costs, containing sprawl, protecting farm and forest land, and diversifying Oregon's industrial base. None of these goals have been achieved, and yet we remain just as dedicated today to this Rube Goldberg legal contraption as we were 40 years ago.</p><p>And our freedoms continue to slowly slip away, in favor of centralized government planning.</p><p>John Adams once said,</p><blockquote><p>“Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.…The moment that the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of god, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist.”</p></blockquote><p>James Madison insisted that the proper role of government was to protect private property rights:</p><blockquote><p>"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well as that which lies in the various rights of individuals.... this being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures, to every man, whatever is his own.”</p></blockquote><p>And Thomas Jefferson, following the teachings of John Locke, originally wrote into the Declaration of Independece the right to "Life, Liberty and Property".</p><p>Clearly the Founders knew the importance of property rights to the ability of each individual to maintain their own individual freedom.</p><p>We could use a little of that foundational wisdom in the Pacific Northwest.</p></div></div></div>Wed, 05 Jun 2013 20:31:01 +0000LT180057424 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/oregon-land-use-law-40-years-failed-planning#commentsA Liberal Inadvertently Reveals Death Panels Again, Chapter 5,621,980http://www.freedomworks.org/content/liberal-inadvertently-reveals-death-panels-again-chapter-5621980
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I'm not normally in the habit of rewarding leftist blogs with links or mentions that drive up their traffic, but today I can't resist.</p><p>Here in Oregon, owing to the large population of liberal voters in our urban centers, one of the most followed blogs is Blue Oregon. Think of Blue Oregon as a sort of ThinkProgress on a state level.</p><p>We've all noticed that, every once in a while, someone who breathlessly defends Obamacare will inadvertently let slip the existence of the much maligned death panels. <a href="http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2011/04/liberals-finally-admitting-death-panels.html">For instance</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Cynthia Tucker, the Maureen Dowd of the south, in her column today admits that<a href="http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2011/04/20/yes-we-need-death-panels/"> death panels will be fact of life</a> under Obamacare.</p><blockquote>This morning, my colleague Jay Bookman had a very thoughtful post on why rationing health care — “death panels,” if you will — is quite necessary. I wrote on a similar subject in my Sunday column.<br><br>If we keeping spending our health care dollars disproportionately on the elderly, we will have little left to spend on children. That makes for an upside-down society that cannot thrive for long.</blockquote></blockquote><p>And who can forget Paul Krugman's gaffe on the subject, <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11/14/paul-krugman-recommends-death-panels-help-balance-budget#ixzz1ySFrqPBM">noted at Newsbusters</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Although he was likely taking a swipe at former governor Sarah Palin with the reference, Paul Krugman on Sunday recommended "death panels" as a means of helping to balance the federal budget.</p> <p>In a Roundtable discussion on ABC's "This Week," the New York Times columnist said of what recently came out of the President's deficit commission, "Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes"</p></blockquote><p>Now, Blue Oregon is typically very careful to avoid acknowledgement of death panels, because Sarah Palin still makes for a great target, and pitting the GOP as sowing hysteria and fear is a running theme throughout much of their content.</p><p>Imagine my surprise, then, when one of the co-founders of the blog posted this <strong>[emphasis added]</strong>:</p><blockquote><p>Most prognosticators seem to think that at least part of the Affordable Care Act will be struck down by the Supreme Court. Maybe I'm too much the optimist, but I think there's a reasonable chance that Justice Anthony Kennedy will respect a century of precedent on the commerce clause. But, I'm no lawyer.</p><p>In any case, Eugene's Register-Guard does <a href="http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/28258454-47/care-health-state-oregon-court.html.csp">an admirable job of summing up the impact</a> on Oregon's efforts to transform health care delivery should the Supremes kill the ACA. In short - we might lose some critical funding (especially if the whole law is struck down), but the central reform will stay in place.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>Oregon already has trimmed more than $12 billion in Medicaid costs over the last 15 years through <em><strong>efficient management and prioritization of services</strong><strong>.</strong></em> Under the state’s health care transformation, the state is working with local communities to establish coordinated care organizations, or CCOs, that will work to reduce expensive hospital stays and emergency room visits by focusing on preventive care, disease management and early intervention.</p></blockquote><p>Prioritization of services. Exactly how will the government prioritize services, and who gets to make the decision? This gets right to the heart of the opposition to government run health care. Never mind the cost or the fundamental transformation of America for a moment. Why does an individual need intervention into their relationship with his or her doctor? When has government intervention EVER made commerce less costly and more efficient? Aren't market forces all that are needed to help the physician and patient prioritize services on their own and significantly drive down costs?</p><p>Who exactly is it, again, that wants to push granny off a cliff?</p></div></div></div>Thu, 21 Jun 2012 18:45:36 +0000LT180055405 at http://www.freedomworks.orghttp://www.freedomworks.org/content/liberal-inadvertently-reveals-death-panels-again-chapter-5621980#comments